SAN DIEGO -- A Sept. 8 trial date was set Wednesday for a Miramar-based Marine charged with murder in the strangulation death of his 19-year-old stripper bride of two months, who was killed as she slept in their Mira Mesa apartment.

Lance Cpl. Patrick Thomas Poteat, a 21-year-old electronics technician, faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted in the Jan. 5 death of Kalyn O'Barr-Poteat.

Poteat pleaded not guilty today in a brief hearing before Judge Jeffrey Fraser.

San Diego police Detective Mike Holden testified during a preliminary hearing last month that he and other officers drove to the Joshua Tree area the morning of Jan. 5 and brought him back to San Diego for questioning.

Poteat admitted strangling his wife in bed with an electrical cord, Holden testified.

The defendant told the detective that a recent argument led him to go back to his home in Georgia over the Christmas holiday.

While there, the victim sent her husband text messages saying she was going to leave him, Holden testified.

Poteat said he wasn't jealous of his wife but didn't like what she did for a living, the detective said. But the defendant said he didn't want to be a hypocrite because he had met his wife while she was working as a stripper, the detective said.

An autopsy determined that the young woman, who worked as a nude dancer at Goldfingers Gentlemen's Club under the name "Darla," had been choked to death.

Police also found a signed note from the defendant on the refrigerator admitting to the crime, prosecutor Dan Link said.

According to published reports, the victim had called her mother in Georgia and said she was growing afraid of her new husband's temper.

Poteat will next be in court Aug. 10 for a readiness conference.